Essex Police say they will be working with both the Ryanair and the Spanish authorities after a man launched a racist tirade on a Stansted-bound flight from Barcelona.

The incident was filmed on Friday on Ryanair flight FR015 as it travelled back to the UK.

In the footage filmed by one of the passengers and uploaded onto social media a man is shown to call an elderly woman in the seat next to him an “ugly black b******” and shouts “don’t talk to me in a foreign language you stupid ugly cow.”

Footage shows the man shouting at the woman to move seats while her daughter tries to stand up to him, telling him her mother is disabled.

He replies: “I don’t care whether she’s f****** disabled or not - if I tell her to get out she gets out.”

The man then calls her “an ugly f****** c***” and tells staff to move the woman to another seat, adding: “if you don’t go to another seat I’ll push you to another seat”.

The cabin crew can be heard to say: “Don’t be so rude, you have to calm down” while other passengers call for the man to be thrown off the flight.

Ryanair tweeted on Sunday that it had seen the footage and reported the incident to Essex police.

It added: “As this is now a police matter, we cannot comment further.”

A spokesman for Essex police said: “This incident, which we were made aware of this morning, is believed to have taken place on a plane at Barcelona Airport.

“Essex Police takes prejudice-based crime seriously and we want all incidents to be reported.

“We are working closely with Ryanair and the Spanish authorities on the investigation.”